Padua (N/E of Italy) recently inaugurated a “cradle for life” (culla per la vita) hoping to curb incidents of babies dumped in trash bins, open fields and public bathrooms. The National Association for Adoptive and Foster Families estimates that 400 newborns are abandoned in Italy every year, with a 10 percent yearly increase.

Until 1888, women left newborns in Padua outside the Ognissanti Church, onto a sort of lazy Susan that, with a spin of the wheel sent the kid into an orphanage run by nuns.

Today’s baby window, just around the corner in Via Ognissanti 70, opens onto the administrative offices of a shelter for single mothers.

When someone opens the metal flap on the street, an alarm sounds upstairs notifying social workers. The mother sets the baby inside. The box then warms up and sends a call to an ambulance service.

Via archinect Wired.